Augustin Dupré, and his work for America : remarks made before the Massachusetts Historical Society, March 13, 1890

Augustin Dupré, and his work for America : remarks made before
the Massachusetts Historical Society, March 13, 1890 / by William
S. Appleton.

Appleton, William S. (William Sumner), 1840-1903.
Cambridge [Mass.] : John Wilson and Son : 1890.

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044086354552

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AUGUSTIN DUPRE;

AND HIS WORK FOR AMERICA.

REMARKS

MADE BEFORE
THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

Marcu 13, 1890.

BY

i essoie ie
WILLIAM 8. APPLETON. |

Cranunice :
JOHN WILSON AND SON.
Anibersitp Press.
1890.

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AUGUSTIN DUPRE

AND

HIS WORK FOR AMERIOA.

WS8HILE in Paris in the early months of 1888, I had the good
fortune to be of some use in securing for the Boston Public
Library a group of objects which may be called the Dupré
collection. They had come from the family of the great med- .
_allist Augustin Dupré, and relate wholly to his work done for
America or Americans, especially Franklin. I have been
allowed to have some of the most interesting and most port-
able for exhibition here to-day, and will give some description
of the collection, with a short account of the artist. |

Augustin Dupré was born at St. Etienne near Lyons, October
6, 1748, the son of a shoemaker. St. Etienne was the seat of
the royal factory of arms; and as Dupré entered in youth the
employ of a gunmaker, this turned his artistic tastes and facul-
ties in the direction of engraving on metal. At the age of
twenty he walked to Paris, where:he found the same employ-
ment, and soon distinguished himself by his beautiful work on
sword-hilts, gradually becoming also an engraver of dies for
medals. He lived at Auteuil, not far from Franklin at Passy ;
and his French biographer says that his acquaintance with
Franklin began in their morning walks to Paris, which one
can readily accept as probable. The diplomatic philosopher
undoubtedly drew from the artist’s lips an account of hig labors
and aspirations, and was easily convinced of his ability as
already shown in his works. Duvivier was at that time the
principal engraver of the royal mint, and as such was employed
to design the medal voted by Congress to Washington for the
evacuation of Boston,—a medal of admirable workmanship,
but without the least suggestion of imagination or genius.
Dupré undoubtedly felt he could do better, and Franklin
gave him the opportunity.

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I shall speak more particularly of Dupré’s American medals
later; but his merit had made him Medallist of the Royal
Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and an assistant engraver
for the mint, when a decree of the National Assembly of
April 9, 1791, ordered a competition for designs for a new
coinage. Dupré came out victorious over all other contestants,
among whom were Duvivier, the artist of the medals of Wash-
ington, De Fleury, William Washington, and Howard, Gat-
teaux, the artist of the medals of Gates, Wayne, and Stewart,
Andrieu and Droz, also medallists of repute. July 11, 1791,
Dupré was named principal engraver of the mint; and so con-
tinued till displaced by Bonaparte in 1803. Dupré’s beau-
tiful designs of 1791 for the pieces of twenty francs and five
francs were again adopted by the short-lived Republic of
1848-1852, and are familiar to all on the coinage of France of
the last twenty years, — a remarkable instance of national ap-
preciation and popularity. Dupré did not receive the cross
of the Legion of Honor till 1830. He died at Armentiéres,
January 31, 1833.

His work for America and Americans comprises seven med-
als, — the Libertas Americana, 1783; the Greene medal, 1787 ;
the Morgan and Jones medals, 1789; the Diplomatic medal,
1792, and two medals of Franklin of 1784 and 1786. The
collection now in the Public Library contains something relat-
ing to nearly all of these. The Libertas Americana has been
the object of unbounded admiration ever since it first appeared.
Some extracts from Franklin’s letters concerning it may be
read in Vol. XI. of the Proceedings of this Society, page 301.
The conception of the young American Republic as the infant
Hercules, whom France in the armor of Pallas covers with her
shield, the legend being ** NON SINE DIIS ANIMOSUS INFANS,”
of course took immensely in France; and the genius of Dupré
wrought out this idea in shape so beautiful that the medal
must always rank among the choicest productions in its own
department of modern art. In the Dupré collection are proofs
of both sides in gold on a white ground.

Of the medal to Gen. Nathanael Greene there is nothing in
the collection, and but little relating to that of Paul Jones.
Of the medal to Gen. Daniel Morgan there are the hubs for
both dies, and Dupré’s study in wax of the battle of the Cow-
pens for the reverse. This design excited the special enthu-

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siasm of Dupré’s French biographer, M..Charles. Blane of the
Institute, who wrote thus of it: ‘‘Le combat de Cowpens,
livré en Amérique par Daniel Morgan, a été le sujet d’une
médaille qui semble frémir sous le mouvement des cavaliers
qui bondissent et des fantassins qui fuient dans un fond, creusé
par les plis imperceptibles du métal, et ot la fumée du canon
va s’évanouir.” Nothing more need be said.

The Diplomatic medal, with its legend, **TO PEACE AND
COMMERCE,” was till a few years ago a numismatic mystery,
which was however wholly cleared up in the * American Jour-
nal of Numismatics” for 1875. Thomas Jefferson ordered the
medal in 1790 in a letter to William Short, then Chargé
d’ Affaires of the United States to France, in which he also
suggested the design, which was afterwards carried out by
Dupré. The dies were finished in 1792, and two medals were
struck in gold, — one for the Marquis de la Luzerne, and one
for the Comte de Moustier ; six impressions were also struck in
bronze, some of which are confidently believed to have been
destroyed in the great fire set by the Communists of Paris in
1871. One specimen in bronze is in this country. In the Du-
pré collection are the original dies of both sides, — one slightly
cracked, the other so badly broken as to be useless. There is
also Dupré’s model of the reverse in clay, one of the two
most precious gems of the collection, carrying out Jefferson’s
idea of ‘*Columbia (a fine female figure) delivering the em-
blems of Peace and Commerce to a Mercury.” We must
admire the inspiration of Jefferson as perpetuated by the
graver of Dupré, when we see the beautiful Columbia in the
guise of an Indian Queen, placing in the hands of Mercury
for universal distribution a horn, filled with grain as a token
of the crops to feed the world, crowned by the olive-branch as
an offer of the principles of peaceful arbitration.

Concerning the medals of Franklin facts are few. Ido not
find that Franklin makes any mention of them in his letters,
nor is it known who ordered them. Certainly Franklin himself
did not. Dupré designed two large medals with the same head
of Franklin, — both well known to collectors, and evidently
ordered by some enthusiastic admirer. In the Dupré collec-
tion are the obverse die and two proofs of a small medal of
Franklin, not known, I think, in finished state. There is also
a proof from an oval die with the arms of a family of Franklin,

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which it is possible was ordered by the old philosopher turned
diplomat, though one must regret that he should appear to
have asserted a claim to bear them; but such weakness may
almost be called a national failing. The two large medals
have the same head, the reverse of the medal of 1786 being
simply a wreath, while that of 1784 has the beautiful figure of
a Genius, each bearing the well-known inscription, ‘‘ ERIPUIT
CCELO FULMEN SCEPTRUMQUE TYRANNIS.” The Dupré collec-
tion also contains what to Bostonians must be its most precious
object, — Dupré’s sketches in pencil, dated 1788, with the first
ideas of the medal with the Genius. The obverse is to all
intents an original portrait of Franklin, with the legend “ BENJ.
FRANKLIN MINIS. PLEN. DES ETATS UNIS DE L’AMERIQUE
MDCCLXXXIIL.,”” which was changed on the medal to “ BENJ.
FRANKLIN NATUS BOSTON. XVII JAN. MDCCVI.” The reverse
differs slightly from the medal as struck; but the inscription
is far inferior, being “JE VOLE A L'IMMORTALITE,” for which
the Latin was substituted, as just mentioned.

Most of the objects I have described are strictly unique in
the full meaning of that often misused word, since there was
no occasion ever to make a duplicate or repetition of them,
except in the case of the broken dies. It is possible that this
was done, though the statements in the published correspond-
ence relating to them are somewhat confusing. There are other
objects of less interest in the collection, as the engraving of the
fight between the “Bon Homme Richard” and the “ Serapis,”
evidently sent to Dupré to guide him in drawing the ships for
the reverse of the medal of Paul Jones; and a head of Jones
in bronze too large for the medal as struck, as if Dupré had
originally designed a larger medal. There are also proofs of
both sides of the medal to Washington for the evacuation of
Boston, by Duvivier, which we may agreeably suppose to
have been presented by the senior artist to Dupré. The
authorities of the city of Paris were desirous to secure the
collection; but M. Hoffmann, the dealer from whom it was
bought, preferred that it should come to this country, where
there can be no more proper place for it as a whole than Bos-
ton. And I think that we may rejoice that it is securely
placed in the Public Library, which is indebted for it to the
patriotic interest and liberal views of our own librarian.

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